Pondering Immortality
by samisunamoosed1
Summary: "To immortality," Loki says, and the dying gods leave the burial grounds of their fellow goddess to drink to their remaining days and the irony of it all. Or where Gabriel stumbles upon a dying god.


The First time Gabriel notices what's happening is when he meets Toth by accident. He's in Egypt at the time, and the humans have just invented electricity, and he wants to escape a debt he still has to settle with Hermes. Gabriel stumbles upon a small, seemingly abandoned temple in the middle of nowhere, and investigates. The walls inside are covered with dirt and are slowly falling apart, and even though Gabriel normally isn't the type to get frightened easily, but he has to admit that this place gives him the chills.

The farther he goes inside, the clammier it gets, and when he reaches the main chamber, an old man is sitting on a chair and staring at old, long since forgotten writings on the wall.

"Why have you come here," he asks Gabriel with a voice like grating sandpaper, and the pagan god suppresses a shiver.

The old man turns his head slightly, and Gabriel can see that he, too, is slowly falling apart. "To laugh at me?"

Gabriel can only stare, but he comes out of his stupor long enough to shake his head.

"What happened to you," the god croaks, and takes a hesitant step forward. While he doesn't always know which Pagan god he's speaking to, they all can sense each other as fellow gods. Loki knows that the man in front of him is a god, and he can also sense that he's dying.

The god lets out a dry laugh that shakes a small flake of skin on his left cheek loose, and for a moment, they both watch as it glides to the floor soundlessly.

"I was Toth. The God of Magic and Wisdom," he says, and Gabriel raises an eyebrow at the cryptic way the god pronounces it.

"Was," he asks, and Toth nods slowly.

"Who are you," the Egyptian god asks, and Gabriel has to take a small moment to reenter his role as Loki, the trickster.

"Loki. God of Mischief and Fire."

Toth nods.

"A Norse god then," he says like it means something to him.

"What's happening to you. You're-" Loki falters for a second, and Toth smiles bitterly.

"Dying?", he asks, and the Norse pagan god nods lamely.

Toth shifts slightly, and more parts of him flake off onto the floor. Loki can see parts of his bone peak trough where his clavicles are.

"People don't pray to me anymore. They have forgotten who I was and what I meant to them," the god explains, and Gabriel shifts uncomfortably. As an angel, he'll never meet that fate, but his other side, the side he created when he took on the persona of Loki, sympathizes greatly with the fallen god.

"So, you just die?", Loki asks and thinks of his friends and about the probability of them meeting the same fate.

Toth shrugs.

Loki sits down next to the god until he's gone completely. He doesn't notice how long it takes, if it took weeks, months, or decades. They don't talk.

When the last little piece of him gets blown away by the breeze, Loki stands up, dusts his clothes off, and makes his way outside again.

He's more shaken up by the event than he wants to admit, and he quickly shelves the memory deep down with his darkest memories.

He encounters another dying god not even a decade later.

The only difference is that he remembers this one. He had given her piggyback rides and played in the mud with her, and when she called her beloved horses, they'd ridden until his back was aching.

Rhiannon still looks like an innocent young girl, with hair so curly and white that it looks like the foam on the waves at the coast of Wales, and eyes a dark brown that so resembles the coat of the horses she loves.

She finds him when he's in Scotland, trying to spook some locals into believing that a giant sea monster is living in the nearby lake. She latches onto him, her hands digging into his arm painfully, and she's shaking so much that she can't talk properly on her first try.

"Loki-"

Loki has never seen her so scared before. Her brown eyes are wide and now that he can see her more closely, he sees small flowers growing from her hairline, so small that they are near unnoticeable. His insides freeze and tie themselves into a tight knot.

"You're dying," he whispers and takes her small face between his hands. Rhiannon lets out a loud, heaving sob and Loki suddenly shivers. He takes her to the coast of Wales, not caring that he technically shouldn't be able to fly, and they visit the horses and sit down near a cliff.

"I'm dying," Rhiannon says quietly and tugs herself more into his side.

Loki tells her of Toth, and she tells him of Taliesin and Lugh, and for a moment they both sit and ponder about the passing of an era they'd thought would last forever.

"What will happen when all of us are dead? Who will they pray to?", Rhiannon asks, and Loki sighs heavily.

"God," he says, and Rhiannon suddenly sits ramrod straight next to him. When he turns to look at her, she's glaring fiercely at the sun that's going down over the sea and basking them in an orange hue.

"Why would they do that!", she shouts at the horizon, and Gabriel flinches.

"What has he ever done for them? Where is he when they pray to him? What does he do when they plead for guidance?"

She turns to him again, and her eyes are glassy.

"What does he have that I don't have?", she whispers, and Gabriel makes a sound like a desperate, drowning man.

"I don't know," he whispers, and he thinks back to all the happiness and courage Rhiannon gave to the people who believed in her.

"They get more rational. They don't believe in gods anymore," he says quietly, and Rhiannon snorts. Loki notices that the small flowers have grown a bit.

That night they just lay down and stare at the stars, and Gabriel prays to his Father for the first time in centuries.

It takes nearly three years until Rhiannon is gone completely. Gabriel weeps when the last bit of her is encased by flowers, and he drinks in her honor like the old welsh customs demand.

"When will you die?", asks Hermes one day, when they sit in a bar somewhere in Greece, and they've drunken quite a few glasses of Ouzu. Loki starts slightly and smiles sardonically.

"Never, I suppose," he says, because Hermes is one of the few who know who he was before he became Loki. Hermes sighs wistfully and takes another swig of his glass.

"Must be nice," he answers after a while and angles a careful glance at Gabriel that has the angel bristling.

"Why? You dying already?", Loki retorts, and Hermes laughs.

"No," he says, and looks outside of the window wistfully.

"But I know some who are," the Greek god says, and Loki's head snaps around so fast that Hermes lets out a surprised laugh.

"Who?", he asks, praying that it won't be any he knows personally.

Hermes sighs again, this time heavier than before.

"Well," he says, and starts counting them on his fingers.

"There's Hecate, and Priapus, and-", he lowers his voice until he's only whispering, "there are rumors that Hera might be dying, too."

Loki drowns his entire glass and immediately refills it.

"Fuck," he says.

"Hecate?", he asks after a moment. She had always been rather nice to him whenever he'd visited Hermes in his realm. Hermes just nods grimly.

"What about you?"

Hermes shrugs.

"Don't feel any weaker than usual. Maybe not like in our prime time back before Christ was born, but still good."

Loki lets out a sigh of relief that he immediately feels bad for. Hermes just smiles pityingly.

"And you'll outlive us all, it seems," the Greek god says and Gabriel shrugs.

Hermes raises his glass.

"Sometimes immortality can be a cruel gift," he says, and lightly bumps Gabriel's glass that hangs limply from his grasp. Hermes lets out a bitter laugh.

"I'll drink to that."

It's after nearly a whole century, long after the humans have invented technology and smartphones, and long after the whole Winchester fiasco, that Gabriel feels something odd. He lets the feeling pull him to a small outer part of New York City until he stands in front of a little girl. She has black, straight hair, and eyes such an electric blue that Gabriel can't stand looking at them longer than a short second.

"Are you a god?", the girl asks him, and he nods mutely. The girl smiles brightly at him and extends her hand.

"Hi," she says as Loki takes her hand as if in a trance.

"I'm Mia. The goddess of the Internet."

Gabriel lets go of her hand as if burned. By now a few others of the remaining gods have gathered and she shakes their hands one by one, and Gabriel just thinks _flowers_ and _calm_ and suddenly he's at Rhiannon's burial place. The flowers are still blooming.

He steps forward until he's standing at the edge of the cliff next to the tomb and just looks at the sea. Eventually, he sits down and stares at the sky.

"New gods…," he says quietly, and wonders if it is his curse to always outlive everyone around him.

"The circle of life," he says bitterly and lets out a snort.

Hermes joins him after a few hours.

"I'm feeling old," Hermes tells him as he flops down next to him. Loki lets out a derisive snort.

"That's because you are old," he retorts, and Hermes feigns hurt. But he quickly sobers up again, flops down onto the wet grass and closes his eyes. Loki does the same and thinks back to a time when he and his fellow pagan friends thought themselves invincible.

"Still sure you'll never die?"

Loki opens an eye and sees that Hermes is looking at him with a serious look on his face. He sighs.

"Think so, yeah."

"Do you like that thought?"

Loki sits up abruptly and turns around to glare at the Greek god.

"Hell, no! Who do you take me for?", Loki says, and Hermes just smiles softly.

"And what does Gabriel think?", he asks softly, and lightly shoves Gabriel's arm with his.

Gabriel is silent for a long time.

"That it isn't fair."

Hermes raises an eyebrow, visibly surprised.

"What's He done for them that we didn't?", Loki asks the stars, and he knows he sounds like a petulant child. Hermes lets out a contemplative sound.

"Well," he says and rises again, "whatever it means, we shall drink to that."

"To immortality," Loki says, and the dying gods leave the burial grounds of their fellow goddess to drink to their remaining days and the irony of it all.


End file.
